If Irish Country Living was to place two McDonald’s items in front of you, the first being the Big Mac stacked high with beef patties and buns, or the Chicken Legend with its spicy tomato salsa, which would you think is the healthier choice?

Many may opt for the healthier-looking Chicken Legend, but at 540 calories, it comes in at 50 calories more than a Big Mac, which many believe to be the ultimate indulgent burger (add in some twisty fries and you have hit the 1,000 calorie mark).

The Healthier Choice

Presenting this information to consumers and giving them the power to make healthier choices is the foundation behind the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s (FSAI) new online calorie counter, MenuCal. Although it was officially launched in April, this is a project that’s been in the making for quite some time.

It has been on Minister for Health Dr James Reilly’s agenda since a campaign was spurred on by Operation Transformation last year. But it isn’t exactly an original idea. In New York and other US states, it is mandatory for chain restaurants to display calories on their menus, and it’s also been adopted in some areas of Australia and the UK.

Studies show that it can make a difference, with research in America showing that when the nutritional numbers were displayed, people ate 152 less calories at burger joints and 73 less calories at sandwich bars. It seems Irish people like to be in the know as well, with a 2013 survey carried out by the FSAI stating that 96% of consumers wanted to see calories on menus.

A piece of the puzzle

Sarah Keogh, dietician with the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute (www.indi.ie), says she wasn’t surprised by these figures.

“Many people think they are making a healthy choice and are genuinely very surprised when they hear the calorie reality. Calories on menus is an area of big debate, but it definitely helps those trying to lose or control their weight. We’re giving them the information to make the choice for themselves and not be misled by what sounds like a healthy option.

“Certainly, there are a lot of factors contributing to the obesity problem in Ireland. Nobody is saying that having calories on menus is going to be the sole thing to turn the problem around, but we have to tackle each issue individually, and this is just one piece of the jigsaw puzzle.”

Restaurant

Industry

However, there have been a lot of complaints from the restaurant industry about how this is going to be possible on a practical level.

Dr Mary Flynn, chief specialist in public health nutrition, FSAI, says: “We knew that a concern for food businesses was to be able to provide this information accurately and to be able to do it themselves. In response, we have devised a calorie calculator that delivers this, while also offering chefs and cooks an extremely efficient way of securely storing all their recipes and ingredients in one location.”

Most importantly, it’s free and has gotten a fair response since it was launched three weeks ago, with 900 active users out of the 26,000 restaurants in the country.

Not Realistic

However, Patrick Kiely of O’Connors Seafood Restaurant in Bantry, Co Cork, says that although it is user-friendly in regards to inputting the recipe details, it’s just not practical on an everyday basis in a busy kitchen.

Patrick says: “Any chef, even people cooking at home, work off a basic recipe, but when you make that dish over and over again, do you really get out the weighting scales to measure 50g of this and 250g of that? Of course you don’t, you do it by knowledge and experience. In our busy kitchen, we just don’t have the time to do that for everything we make in the kitchen. If this becomes mandatory, it’s just going to be a load of lies. On top of that, there are so many rules and regulations with HACCP in restaurant kitchens, adding this to the business could require more staff.”

Financial implications

This isn’t the only financial impact that Patrick anticipates if legislation was introduced on this issue. “We were open-minded about calories on our menu at the start and so we introduced it on a trial basis last year. We said we’d give it a month but we felt the financial implications within a week.

“I found that the sales of a dish like halibut with béarnaise sauce and a chorizo mash just didn’t sell, while people were opting instead for plaice with mango sauce. That’s all well and good for a few days, but in the long run how can you add variety to your menu? We’d end up having to become a Greek or Spanish-style restaurant. That’s not what we’re about.

“On top of that, our dessert sales dropped by about 80% in the space of a week. Nothing was selling because of the high calorie count.

“Over time, that will really impact on businesses and restaurants would, inevitably, have to pass that price onto consumers just to stay in business.”

Wouldn’t that inspire Patrick to use different ingredients?

“No, we are a Michelin-starred restaurant. The quality of our ingredients is essential for our dishes. You can’t use a low-fat spread making a dessert, it just wouldn’t come together.”

That’s not to say Patrick is totally against calories on menus. “I can definitely see the advantage of it in big chain restaurants where everything is made using a very specific process, such as McDonald’s.

“Every Big Mac is made the same, the size of the patty is consistent, the bun will always be a certain diameter. However, we’re a small, high-end restaurant. Not only is it very difficult to manage, we’re the type of restaurant that people visit as a treat. Many don’t want to know how many calories are in their dish. They want to relax, enjoy the experience and not worry about their béarnaise sauce.” CL